The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Page #11

Two people, me and Ian Hunter

in Victoria, were fined.

There's all sorts of

seed businesses still open.

Marc's the only one

out of about

businesses in Canada

that's been charged.

Marc has been paying the

Canadian federal government

taxes on income he has made

from selling seeds.

The government relied

on the existence of these

Internet seed sellers so

that patients who had

qualified for medical-

marijuana exemptions,

who were bugging them

for seed,

were being directed

to these Internet seeds,

and Marc Emery specifically,

in some cases, as the place

to get their seed.

It puts Canada

and our government

in a very difficult position,

because they've either got

to hand over a Canadian citizen

to a foreign government

for activities

that were

entirely done in Canada,

for which our own government

and our own police

are not willing to charge him.

If the Canadian authorities

who rubber-stamped this sh*t

think that what I've done is

so bad, then charge me.

I should be tried

by a jury of my peers.

I'm not about to be tried

by my peers at all.

I'm about to be

tried by foreigners.

At 4:
20, a time synonymous

with smoking marijuana,

everyone lit up,

and for those who didn't have

marijuana to light up...

Again, the police

were close by,

and again,

they didn't seem to care.

One officer mentioned

she was bothered

by the smell of the smoke.

It was kind of confusing.

How could we be sending

Marc Emery to prison for life

in the United States

if even our own police aren't

finding it worth their while

to bust people smoking it right

in front of them ?

That's not the

only thing that's confusing.

The marijuana that's consumed

in the United States,

how much comes from Canada ?

I don't know much

about Canada.

I don't, either.

Maybe 20% ?

I'll go with 35.

( host )

And a quarter.

I would say about 60%.

Yeah, 70, 80%.

At least 80% of it.

Whoo.

I don't think

it's all that much.

Most of it is here.

We're getting the drugs

and are saying,

"Oh," you know, "BC bud."

This was when some of

the people in Canada

were trying to

get marijuana legalized...

John Walters went up there and

said, "What you're talking about

"is passing a law

that will allow you

to export poison

to my country."

When we talk about "poison,"

exporting poison,

what do we export to Canada ?

Cigarettes.

the United States every year

from ingesting cigarettes.

Five million

around the world.

So who's exporting

the poison here ?

Of the six million people who

could benefit from treatment

that need it in

the United States today,

on marijuana.

( man )

Lies, lies, lies.

You know, they invitedme,

I'm sorry.

I wasn't sure who invited him

and why he came here yet again.

He's been here before.

He needs to shake his head.

So how about him

shutting down the cocaine

that's coming across

the border ?

How about him

shutting down the guns ?

Sometimes you feel like

you've stepped into

"Alice in Wonderland,"

you've gone through

the looking glass.

In fact, more Colombians die

from U.S. tobacco

than Americans die from

Colombian coca products.

So what's the drug war

really about ?

Because if you

don't want American tobacco

in your country,

America will go to war, in a

trade sense, with your country.

You have Canada engage in

cannabis-policy reform

and taxing

and regulating cannabis,

and all the scare stories

haven't come true,

you have an awfully hard time

sustaining your own

domestic policies.

( host )

What do you think would happen

between Canada and the U.S.

if Canada were

to legalize marijuana ?

There's been rumors

that they're like,

"We'll shut

down the border."

I don't think so.

I've heard that, too,

but then my question is,

do you want LA, you know,

in the dark and thirsty ?

If you do that, then

we're not gonna ship oil,

we're not gonna

ship water,

we're not gonna

ship electricity.

It's not gonna happen.

We're too important

to each other.

( Greg )

The softwood-lumber people

gonna stop doing business ?

The fishing guys gonna

stop doing business ?

Are the people who manufacture

stuff back and forth

across the border

gonna stop doing business

'cause pot's legal here ?

( Kirk )

Business interests

aren't gonna sit still

for losing millions of

dollars a day

because of border-wait times

simply because Canada takes

a different domestic social

policy on cannabis.

Yes, business interests.

Sometimes they just

seem to pop up,

and every so often,

in the most unlikely of places.

We have seen an explosion in

prison construction

that lags only slightly behind

the explosion in incarceration.

There are more people in jail in

America now than ever before.

In the United States,

it's one of the

fastest-growing industries.

( Darryl )

Some major investment companies

at one time

described private prisons

as one of the best investments

you could make.

So you could make

more money building prisons

than any other type of

investment.

( Norm )

They're extraordinarily

expensive to build.

They're even far more expensive

to operate and maintain.

Right now in

the United States of America,

the biggest growth industry is

the privatized prison complex.

Japan, for instance,

incarcerates at 38 people

per 100,000 population.

The United States incarcerates

at a rate of 726 people

per 100,000 population.

In a 20-year period,

the prison population in

the United States quadrupled.

( Norm )

We have just shy of 5% of

the world's population

and almost

Even South Africa at its worst

didn't have as many prisoners

per capita as America has now.

Texas just built 77 prisons

in about the last 20 years.

( Norm )

We find state treasuries on

the verge of bankruptcy

as a result of

prison construction.

Some think there won't be room

for them in jail.

We'll make room.

We're almost

doubling prison space.

Some think there aren't

enough prosecutors.

We'll hire them,

with the largest increase in

federal prosecutors in history.

In the late '80s,

there were about five

privately run prisons

in the United States.

By 2005, that number

had reached over 260.

As soon as you've accumulated

a certain amount of capital

from building prisons,

you can start investing that in

ensuring job security,

ensuring there'll always

be more prisoners around

to require more prisons.

We have private prisons ?

What the f*** is that ?

How did that happen ?

How can you profit over people

going to jail ?

That's scary,

that's a bad, bad sign.

Our society is in deep,

deep, deep trouble

if nobody's looking into that.

Correctional-guard unions have

become powerful lobbying groups,

pushing for longer sentences

on less-serious crimes.

California's has become one of

the most powerful in the state.

The California Department of

Corrections budget

rose from

to 5.7 billion in 2004.

Between 1977 and 1999,

overall local and state spending

on corrections across

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